Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examines how social media play roles in spreading LGBT movements in Malaysia, as well as how their potential in influencing Malaysian minds on the LGBT movements. In this study, the uses and gratifications theory applied to understand how the LGBT communities use social media as way to communicate and disseminate information in order to achieve their needs and gratifications. This study has applied qualitative approach, especially using in-depth interview and observation to the social media contents of the LGBT communities. This study finds that LGBT movements are significantly growing in Malaysia. However, due to the fact of conservative Malaysian society, the LGBT communities have optimized social media for spreading the information, sharing experiences, also communicating and engaging with another LGBT movements and communities. The use of social media comes from the nature of social media itself, namely free, open, easy and cheap access, as well as no regulatory body controls their contents. In this social media movement, the use of hashtags is very important to classify their movements, to easily communicate under certain topics, to gain new followers, as well as to maintain the current members. This study also finds that social media have played important roles in disseminating LGBT information in Malaysia, as well as in shaping the minds of Malaysians along with the spreading of LGBT movements in Malaysia.
Keywords: LGBT movement; social media; uses and gratification; conservative society; social media hashtags.
Article Details
Copyright (c) 2020 Asian Journal of Media and Communication (AJMC)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
